Trinity Fusion planned for 2012

We were heart broken to see that Komodo is a second generation Bulldozer with 8-cores and not a funky cool APU with graphics inside. Well, there will be a market for high end desktops that will always like to have an additional graphics card. Still, we kind of hoped that this 8-core APU could have graphics that could do the work unless you need a lot of gaming power, something like Nvidia´s Optimus.

Trinity is the new APU, something that comes after Llano. The vague specification claims that the core inside of Trinity is based on Bulldozer and that you can expect two to four cores.

Again, AMD will face some manufacturing process limitations as the chip planned for 2012 is still going to be a 32nm while Intel should have many 22nm shipped by that date. In power sensitive designs such are tablets and notebooks; this will definitely make a big difference as Intel has a good chance of being cooler.

The GPU is of course DirectX 11 capable as DirectX 12 specification might only be finalized by late 2012. If the Bulldozer core is a success, AMD might have a fighting chance at least in some parts of mainstream and essential markets.

Trinity will launch after Ivy Bridge, that reportedly has double the graphics power of Sandy Bridge, so Sandy's good-enough graphics will get much better. Since Intel currently has a much better CPU architecture, AMD will have a hard time fighting off the new designs.

Ontario and Zacate will get replaced by 28nm Krishna CPUs that come with two to four cores and a DirectX 11 graphics part.